Wednesday, September 17, 2014

PHOTOGRAPHY TECHNIQUES

Make the most of your CAMERA

by learning new photography techniques. These include tips for photographing specific subjects, using different creative styles, and improving image quality.

Using Your Camera

Subjects

Photo Lighting

Making the Most of Natural Light in Photography (NEW)
Portrait Lighting with One Light: Introduction
Portrait Lighting with Two Lights: Fill Light
Specialty Portrait Lights: Background, kickers, hair, rim, etc.
Studio Portrait Lighting Styles & Diagrams

Composition

The Rule of Thirds
Using Diagonals for Dynamic Photos
Negative Space - Sometimes Less is More

Image Stacking & Multiple Exposures

While every photographer eventually develops their own style, learning common techniques can help you get to this stage more easily.

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CAMERA EQUIPMENT & ACCESSORIES

Learn to make the most of your CAMERA

equipment and accessories. Topics include camera lenses, lens filters, general camera care and maintenance. Tutorials are usually independent of camera type or brand.

Camera Types & Accessories

Camera Lenses

Lens Characteristics

Camera Lens Filters

Caring for Your Camera & Photos

Just as with any tool, having better CAMERA

equipment only makes a difference when this tool is used effectively. Although photography might seem technical at first, eventually this aspect will become second nature — enabling you to focus on your artistic intent.

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CAMERA SHUTTER SPEED

A camera's shutter speed can control exposure, but it's also one of the most powerful creative tools in photography. It can convey motion, freeze action, isolate subjects and smooth water, amongst other abilities. This tutorial describes how to achieve these various effects, in addition to hopefully stimulating other creative ideas for using shutter speed in everyday shots. For a background on how it factors into exposure, also see camera exposure: aperture, ISO and shutter speed.

Monday, September 8, 2014

Improving Sports Action Photos

BY KERRY GARRISON ·

Action photos are some of the funnest photos you can take but it takes a few tips to go from simple snapshot to something that really stands out. Usually the problem is with showing motion. As the image to the right shows, a fast shutter speed and the rear side angle doesn’t really do much for this shot. During this article we will look at other images that didn’t work, and others that did so we can learn how to improve our sports action photos.

Learning to Pan

Taking a shot similar to the one above but with a slightly slower shutter speed and moving the camera along with the bikers helps to blur thebackground and provide a better sense of motion. This technique takes some practice as you need to match the speed of the biker with as little up/down motion as possible in order to get a sharp image. When done well, you get an image that feels like its moving right along with the action. Definitely don’t expect all of these to turn out, you will take quite a few and hope that a few of them turn out good.

Find The Emotion

Sports always have some level of emotion that you can play off of. In this shot we can see the bikers faces that show the grit and determination to stay in first. Shots like this can really pull you in and give you a feel for the action. Using a relatively large aperture of f/5.6 separates the two bikers in front from the pack in the back. The short depth of field focuses the attention on the main bikers by blurring out the people behind them.

Pick The Right Angles

Some angles work well and some don’t work at all. This will vary depending on what sport you are shooting and what else is going on in the scene. In the next two images, you can see that the angle that was used can make a huge difference.

Boring and non-descript side image

Exciting front angle and tighter crop

Leave Room To Move

This may seem odd at first, but you need to leave room for the subject to move within the frame. Using basic composition rules we can often just leave some white space on the side of the frame that the subject will be moving into. These two images demonstrate this. The first one has the biker heading to the right but is too far into the frame and it just “doesn’t feel right”.

Biker to far into the right side of frame

In this next image I used a combination of the techniques above including picking the right angle, getting in tight, and giving room for the rider to go in the frame.

Much Better Action Shot Using Above Techniques

Summary

I am far from being the greatest sports shooter around but using a few simple techniques can really help improve the quality of your images. If you have some good sports shots, please share them in the forums.

Use a simple angle to make a shot more dramatic

BY KERRY GARRISON ·

Here is a quick tip for you that can make a big difference in your shots, try adding a little angle to your shots when you take them. The following two images show what a little turn of the camera can accomplish.

Sunday, September 7, 2014

What does your target market actually want?

Michael Shilling

I hear lots of people saying things like “My target market is people with £35k+ incomes” or “Families that live in Chelsea” but I rarely hear “people who like a particular type of photography”.

By the way, vintage is not a style of photography it’s a trend and while we’re on the subject neither is wedding photography that’s “Natural not too posed”.

The problem is when you ask someone what they actually want they can’t really describe it.

“I don’t want too many props or silly stuff, I want something that’s more simple with less faff”

I’m a big fan of marketing long-tail terms but that’s a tough one to focus on.

The next time you are in a viewing with an “ideal client” make notes on two things.

1. Which images get the biggest reactions (good or bad).

2. What they buy and why.

For example you might get a big laugh at a silly picture but they don’t buy it. If they saw this in your marketing it might attract them to you.

What they buy can be very different, sometimes it can be because the photo is amazing but most of the time it’s because it’s a box ticker like a good family picture.

On your COMPUTER

put together two files of images.

1. Images that sold.

2. Images that attract.

How different are these images from the ones you already use to promote yourself?

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Photography Marketing: The Essential Steps Toward Landing a Dream Client

By Angela Pointon

Let’s face it. We all want to land that dream client. We want that fantasy photo shoot. We think about what it would be like to be there, on set, camera in hand, shooting the photograph of our dreams.

When we ponder our photography marketing and wonder if it’s working for us, it’s critical to make sure our efforts are directly targeted at the type of work we dream of. How do we get from here to there?

Step One: Define the dream client’s persona

We cannot attain the shoot of our dreams if we haven’t formally and fully defined the persona of the decision maker we need to win over. In other words, we may have fantasized about what it would be like to be there. But do we know the exact person (or group of PEOPLE

) who will make the decision to hire us? Do we know where they hang out, what websites they read, what influencers they have, what things they dislike? If you don’t know, spend some time researching, talking to other similar individuals and determine all of the possible attributes that make up this decision maker’s persona.

For example, a SAMPLE

decision maker’s persona might be described like this:

eats on the go
loves small dogs (she has two)
lives and works in the city
works late at night often
goes to charity events (at least once per month) with coworkers
collects VINYL RECORDS
price of photography isn’t an issue / not reason for deciding
works for her clients; she is the decision maker, but the client must love her choice
her shoots are rapid and she needs someone who she can book quickly

Step Two: Be where they are

You might meet your coveted decision maker via an introduction from a friend or the hope of word-of-mouth about your work. But if you don’t want to bet the whole hand on either of those, you need to find a way to be where your decision maker hangs out. Here are some ideas on ways to do just that:

write a GUEST BLOG POST on the websites they frequent
submit to speak at events they care about
offer to do free photography at a charity event they’ll be at
understand what they’re totally passionate about (tennis, knitting, art collecting, etc) and send them an introductory note, letter or email and include a comment about their passion (ideally you share the passion or can at least relate to it)

Step Three: Make sure your work looks like the work you want to get

This sounds so obvious, but it’s so important. Especially as we’re starting out, photographers shoot a lot of different styles and subjects. But if the work you are currently creating isn’t the work you want to be creating, you have to change that. You are empowered to shoot in a way that makes you happy. Every photographer has that RIGHT

. At some point in all of our lives we starting “acting” and then that “act” becomes the reality called: our life. If you start shooting the type of work you want to shoot today you will gain experiences, gain images and gain craft that gets you one step closer to your dream client every day.

If you want more content like this to help catapult the success of your photography business, download Angela Pointon’s newly published book, The Art Of A Photo Business.

Photography Marketing: How to Keep From Overextending Yourself

By Angela Pointon

When you own your own business, you often want to take on the world. You want to constantly do new projects, take on new assignments and launch new stuff. Over committing and over extending comes from good intentions. But, it can often leave a trail of frustration and disappointment for yourself and for others involved.

I adopted this mantra for my own business and even my personal life a few months ago. So far, I’ve stuck to it with steadfast dedication, and it’s unbelievable how helpful it’s been to me. So I wanted to share it with all of you, too. Here it is:

Do what you say you’re gonna do.

Simple, right? Actually it’s not, and here’s why. When you follow this mantra you are unable to commit to doing anything you’re not going to do. It puts an end to empty good intentions and starts every decision with a serious conversation on whether or not I’m going to commit. And if I can’t commit, saying no is hard. But, I remind myself that I’d rather say no than let someone down. And when I say yes, I mean it. When I commit, I do it.

This mantra has one other level to it. I have found that when you over commit to something (or to many things), you skim the surface of what’s expected. You might complete tasks late. You might not give them your all. In the end, even though you made an effort, more than likely you’re disappointing someone by not approaching it with the unbelievable passion you might be capable of if you had only hand selected the things you’re willing to 120% commit to doing… and doing amazingly well.

Make every day within the business much more satisfying and rewarding by following these simple guidelines.

Here they are:

Say yes to only the things that help you and your business along its path toward success.
If you’re into it, give yourself the room to say yes to a limited number of volunteer or philanthropic engagements. Hint: I find it easiest to set boundaries up in the beginning of the year. For example, if I tell myself I will allot time for 5 volunteer events in the year, I think long and hard before committing to each one because I only have 5 I’m “allowed” to do.
Practice saying no, and help people understand why. For example, tell them you have to respect your prior commitments and make sure you have time to give them your all. They might be a bit disappointed, but if you give them an explanation they’re more likely to understand.